The Blog Page for Northwest Arkansas Atheists

Morning Meditations #32: A Misinterpretation of How We Live and Exist

Today is a day without appointments, thus a day with myself. I shall be myself for all of it. Yesterday, after the affirmations of others and much consideration, I failed to follow my own advice. Hooray! What!? Let me break this down a smidge.

I said I would enjoy my current success at change, transformation, or whatever my audience considers this phase of my life to be. Instead, I reached a new workout max, advanced my learning with regarding properties of a newish (to me) word processing program, walked all over campus to help with a project, did my regular four-hundred plus reps workout, studied, listened to my body, healed, helped, decided to add a new green to my smoothie diet, and provided a late night consultation about meditation. As well as the everything else a person does in a day. Nothing like sitting back and enjoying. * wink *

Maybe that is my modern modus operandi, which I know seems a little oxymorornoic, but as I am not a relapse candidate, this behavior will be observable far into the future. It isn’t a “go get’er” attitude. It is “this is my happy place” behavior. The question I asked myself at the end of the day is, “Did I feel like I was pushing myself?” Answer: “no.” Not even a little bit is the real answer, which is a lie and the truth. There were moments throughout the day when I did push myself to do better, solve a problem, critical think, and so on, but it never felt like the milestones and obstacles were someplace new, something to overcome, or “achievable.” Similar to the experience of becoming more mindful, these all felt like things that were already in me, but I only needed to open the doors. I am proud of them, yes, but only because of this fact: they already reside within. Harkening back to the very idea of appreciating the self before one can appreciate anything else wholeheartedly. I have come to understand these behaviors are me, rather than someplace I am headed.

Each day through life is a series of steps that carry us along the arrow of time, and from the cosmological perspective, none of us really “move” anywhere. This lead me to see us all as static on some level—fixed. Once we have internalized all this “movement” and “growth,” it looks more and more like those terms might actually be a misinterpretation of how we live and exist. I propose a thought experiment to my audience.

The next time you decide to push yourself, try and rethink the event as mirroring the intrinsicality of your behavior. As the moment you behave, that which you do becomes “you.” Milestones then cease to be milestones and only reflect what you were searching for all along, wholeness. These new achievements don’t make you better; they reveal how powerful you already are.

Something I love about myself is:

27. My forgetfulness. This used to irritate the shit out of me. Seriously, I thought there was something wrong with me. The pathology that connected itself to this behavior led people suggest I could be mildly schizophrenic (like the rest of us). I was so silly. My resistance to being wrong (like the rest of us) manifested in such a way as to cause anxiety. I now realize that I forget at the same rate as others, I may still be too hard on myself, but every time we forget something, it gives as an opportunity to remember. What a fucking gift!